April 10, 2045 - 7:45 pm
Bod-Modders. One of many other groups of people taking advantage of society's advancements.
It started off with war veterans receiving the most state-of-the-art prosthetics Psychwatch could offer them. The burden of blindness would disappear with just the installation of artificial eyes or even a visor connected to the individual's optic nerves, giving its user a chance to see the world again and all the people they've saved. An arm once used to pull a trigger but lost in the chaos of war could be replaced with something stronger, a limb of pure bionic material nearly indistinguishable from their real arm. Now its user could hold the hand of their loved one once more.
But that need turned into a want, another necessity devolving into a desire. Cybernetic limbs replacing what was once lost wasn't enough. They were still connected to the rest of a fragile, imperfect human being. How can something be perfect if it still bleeds?
This is where the Bod-Modders emerged. They'd sacrifice everything that once had value to them if it meant replacing as much of their physical form with cybernetics as possible. If one limb was artificial, then all of them should be. They could run faster, punch harder, make enemies more easily. If an ocular implant could restore vision, then why not give them the ability to see something beyond the world in front of them? How about the ability to see electrical signals drifting through the air like leaves in the autumn wind? See through walls and clothing? See through people's lies?
Humans were no longer satisfactory, the Bod-Modders often thought. They have too many bugs in their system. Bugs like morality and standards, holding them back from achieving their true potential.
And much like the poor young girl they had forced into the freezing cold shower, they screamed way too much.
Back in the warehouse that would soon fall to Psychwatch an hour later, two Bod-Modders known only as Braddock and Gaff guarded the door to a shower, each armed with a gun. If one saw Braddock from a distance, it would look as if he was wearing some kind of futuristic armor. But his charcoal, metal arms and legs were, in fact, his physical being. Everything below his neck was manufactured and wired by mankind, and his robotic torso and artificial muscles were visible through his unzipped longcoat. Gaff was a little more visibly human, at least on the outside. His eyes were replaced with an optical visor implanted directly into his skull, and everything on his arms, from his fingertips to his elbows, was synthetic. The two cyborgs were as emotionless as the machines they wished to become, not even flinching at the agonized screams of the girl locked inside the shower.
"That's enough," Braddock growled in his synthetic voice.
Gaff lowered his weapon and placed his hand on a small handle connected to a series of pipes trailing along the walls and ceiling. He carefully lowered it to its original position, and the sound of running water subsided. The girl's screams grew quieter, fading into softer but equally harrowing sobs. Trading in his gun for a towel hanging on a rack besides him, Gaff opened the door into the chamber and peeked his head inside.
A cool spray of mist dampened his visor. The concrete floor was smeared with dirty water and blood as it carefully streamed toward the drain. A teenage girl was crouched in the corner, still crying fearfully to herself, goosebumps rippling across her skin as a shiver went down her spine. Gaff couldn't tell whether the water trickling down her face was from the shower or her tears, and never in his life would he ever care.
"Alright, I'm coming in, sweetheart," he said. "I've got a nice warm towel just for you. Just dry yourself up, put on some clothes, and you'll get to see the others again."
"Stay away!" she shrieked, backing further into the wall.
"Listen, honey, we've got a schedule to keep. We just gotta wash up the rest of your friends, then we're selling you and the robo-whores to the House of Pleasure. Whether or not you make it out of there alive isn't my problem. Understand?"
"Get away from me!"
Cornering her, Gaff took the towel and threw himself down on the girl, doing his best to get it around her. Her screams grew louder as she kicked and scratched away at him, but nothing could push him away. He grabbed her hair and pulled her away from the wall, still restraining her with the towel.
"Stop it!" she sobbed, her hands gripped tightly on Gaff's arm in another failed attempt to push him away. "Let me go! Let me—"
She went silent as Gaff placed his cold metal hand over her mouth. He rose from the floor, his arms still wrapped around the girl, and forced her out of the chamber. Even with her cries muffled, she refused to hold back the tears, and they trailed down her cheeks like the freezing water her captors forced her to endure.
Braddock approached the two of them. He placed his hand on the girl's chin and lifted her head up so he could get a glimpse of the fear in her eyes, a sadistic smirk stretching across his face. "Don't worry," he said. "The men and women at the House of Pleasure will give you everything you want. As long as you give them what they want."
He took her away from Gaff, still muffling her screams. It was painfully burned into the girls' heads never to mess with Braddock. He was the leader. If he wanted something done, it would be done. Whether it was important or whether it served only to bring him and his associates satisfaction, one thing all of the girls learned in the most atrocious manner.
Braddock and Gaff went silent as they heard the sound of vehicles entering the warehouse's back garage. The cacophonous sound of the large trucks' braking to a halt pierced the air, and another Bod-Modded emerged from around the corner. "They're here," he said.
Gaff glanced back at Braddock, the ceiling lights glinting off his visor. "Take care of it," Braddock ordered before flashing the girl trapped in his arms an icy gaze. "I'll be returning this one to the others."
Then the two of them went off in opposite directions, with Gaff directed towards the garage. The first thing he saw were two large cargo trucks positioned in the middle of the room. The garage door proceeded to close, the grating sound of clanking gears filling the room. The cargo crates in the back of the trucks opened up, and out emerged multiple men and women wearing plain white masks, their eyes marked by red X's. The only one not bothering to wear a mask was Crimson, who hopped out of the crate without a care in the world. Much like the rest of the goons who came with her, a machete was strapped to her back.
"Crim-bob!" Gaff shouted as he made his way toward her.
Crimson laughed. "You're taking a big risk calling me that, y'know," she replied in a dissonantly joyful manner.
"Where's your brother and the main man?"
"They're on the way. Should be here in a few minutes." Crimson paused to glance around at the other Bod-Modders standing around the room. However, her sights were set on the cases of weaponry placed against the wall. "Is that for us?"
Gaff snapped his metal fingers. "Yep! Exactly what you came for."
Crimson turned back toward Dawson, one of her fellow masked psychos hidden among a crowd full of them. "Dawson, honey, you mind keeping watch on the other metal men in here? We wouldn't want the Man finding out about a botched deal, do we?"
"No," Dawson muttered quietly, and he walked to the front of the truck, wielding a hatchet.
Crimson turned back to Gaff. "Aww, no need for that," Gaff reassured. "We're all buddies, right, Crim-bob? There's no way this deal can end horribly."
"I hope not," Crimson replied with a smirk. "My boss absolutely hates when his plans go astray. He especially hates the people that make his plans go astray."
"Well...hopefully I don't end up as one of those people." Gaff cleared his throat as he walked Crimson over to the weapon crates.
He input the password on one crate and waited patiently as the mechanical box took itself apart like a puzzle. The cover slid off, revealing ten cutting-edge handguns. Each one had a shiny silver coat with orange pinstripes tracing along the barrel and grip. Gaff took one from its slot along with a round of ammo, letting it click into the magazine like a flash drive. As he cocked the gun, a brief string of electricity trickled out of the muzzle.
"Smart automatic handguns," he declared. "Activated only by fingerprint ID scan, including both real and cybernetic prints. Comes with a preinstalled mod that gives the gun ten times faster firepower than before, with a single shot being capable of piercing through seven layers of solid concrete. Watch."
Gaff aimed the gun at three empty glass bottles on the other side of the garage and fired, the sound of each shot reminiscent of a thunderclap. Each bottle disappeared into dust in a blink, a new hole in the wall left behind by each shot.
"And that's just what happens to glass bottles," Gaff chuckled. "You should see what it does to the human body. Same thing, but messier."
"Impressive," Crimson said. "I'm sure he'll appreciate the modification, but he wanted something unconventional."
"Oh. Then check this out!" Gaff placed the gun back in the crate and activated its closing sequence, pulling out another crate.
After repeating the same process of inputting a code and waiting for the box's contents to emerge on a platform, Crimson was greeted by the sight of a tubular-shaped firearm that appeared to be a modified shotgun. Four orange lights lit up the side of the barrel. Gaff took it from the box and aimed it at the wall several feet away from them. When he pulled the trigger, a deafening boom echoed throughout the building as dozens of knifelike fragments buried into the wall like a rain of knives.
"No bullet shells?" Dawson asked.
"This, pretty miss," Gaff explained, "is the shrapnel gun. Blasts out hundreds of razor-sharp pieces of glass, stone, whatever shit you shove into this thing. What it makes up for in its incompatibility with bullets, it makes up for by turning literally any other kind of material into ammunition. Anyone in the way of this baby will get torn to shreds."
"He'll love it," Crimson giggled creepily.
"And it also comes in automatic and semi-automatic models as well, in case shotguns aren't your thing. So by the time you're done, nothing will be left of the target."
Crimson grabbed Gaff's hand and shook it hectically. "Deal!"
However, her grin vanished when she saw Braddock at the entrance back into the hallway, holding another girl at gunpoint. She wore an uncomfortably see-through nightgown, and her nostrils were specked with dry blood. Braddock had one hand on the girl's shoulder while the other was waving a gun at Crimson and her fellow masked men.
"You mind telling me why the fuck there are two other trucks parked at the building's front entrance?" he barked.
Gaff would've raised a brow if he still had them, but he still expressed as much concern as his superior did, turning back toward the young white-haired psychopath in front of him. "I thought your boss said to meet at this location," he said, noticeably tenser. "As in, the back garage."
Crimson's uncanny grin stretched even further across her face. Gaff carefully placed the shrapnel gun back into its case before retrieving the smart handgun from earlier. The girl trapped next to Braddock was on the verge of collapsing, panic overtaking her like a sickness. Every other person in the room—both Bod-Modders and the masked crooks—positioned their weapons in the direction of whatever threat they were closest to.
"You mind telling us what the fuck's going on?" Gaff scowled, dropping what little attempt he made at appearing amiable. He placed the tip of his gun against Crimson's chest.
Even with death only a single swoop of a finger away, Crimson couldn't help but burst out laughing. She tossed her head back as the laughter expelled from her body like a demon. She playfully ran her fingers along the gun until she had a firm grip on the gun, slowly rising it toward her head.
"Tell us what's going on!" Braddock yelled. "Tell us or you and all the other bitches here are gonna die!"
"What's going on?" Crimson giggled once again. And her remaining words were uttered in a low, seething whisper. "A cleansing. That's what's going on."
And Gaff went silent as a machete dug through his skull.
The sounds of gunfire filled the room like a violent rave as the Bod-Modders and masked men went to war. Gaff's robotic finger was clamped down on his gun's trigger, emptying out his ammo on everything around him as his lifeless body dropped to the floor. Both his enemies and his comrades were caught in his line of fire, and each one was disposed of violently, simultaneously dropping to the floor like flies. His arm swinging to the side, three shots dug through the walls as if they were no stronger than window panes and struck the poor girl in her back as she attempted to flee.
"FUCK!" Braddock roared as he continued opening fire on the rest of the people in the room. A shot from a regular gun grazed his face like a scratch on a car, and he remained unmoved. He managed to kill Dawson and two other masked men.
The cyborg took aim at Crimson, who used Gaff's corpse as a shield. Each shot he took ripped another chunk from his body, spraying the psychotic girl behind it. Hearing her laughs was like having needles jabbed into his skull, and he continued firing until Gaff was nothing but a pile of mangled flesh and machinery.
The only thing worse than her laughs was hearing her shriek in horror as a bullet exploded through her shoulder. "MASTER!" she cried in a shrill, inhuman wail.
Braddock's final glimpse before collapsing to the floor unconscious was the sight of his fellow metal men getting their cybernetic perfections ripped from their bodies.
* * *
When Braddock woke up again, the metallic scent of blood hit him like a truck.
As his vision slowly came back to him, he made out a humanoid figure sitting a few feet in front of him on a chair. With the blurriness finally gone, he saw a man in a white mask with red X's painted over the eyes and a grin emblazoned on it, the mask itself appearing to be either porcelain or plastic compared to the rags he saw his goons wear earlier. He wore a gray vest over a light blue dress shirt and bandages all over his arms, to the point where not a single spot of skin was visible.
His clothes, bandages, the scalpel in his gloved hand, and the entire floor around him was drenched in blood.
There was only one light left on in the room, and it flashed directly at the Multi Man sitting in front of Braddock. From what it seemed, the pool of gore was larger than it appeared to be, maybe even taking up the entire room. If they were still even in the same building.
"Silas Braddock," the Multi Man stated, twirling the scalpel around in his hand.
"Who th-he f-f-f-fuck are y-y-y-you?" Braddock ordered, his robotic voice glitching uncontrollably.
"You may be wondering what that's all about," the Multi Man replied, scooting into his seat. "I've removed all of your so-called perfections."
Braddock's mouth gaped open in horror. "All of..."
"Everything. Your cybernetic limbs, sense enhancements, intoxication suppressors. The only thing I left behind was your artificial spine, lungs, and voice box. I could end your life right now just by playing around with your exposed nerves like a violin."
"Is th-th-th-this my blood?"
"Partially. You weren't the only one who's been equalized around here. All of your Bod-Modder buddies have been returned to their original human self, more or less. Too bad you're the only one who might live long enough to adjust to the changes."
"What are you?!" screamed Braddock.
"The same thing as you. Just another pile of flesh and bone believing myself to be something greater and willing to do anything to prove that." The Multi Man leaned forward. "What's your motivation?"
"Excuse me?"
"Your motivation. What led you to your addiction to cybernetic modifications?"
"It's not an addiction. It's a choice."
"Well..." The Multi Man paused to make sure Braddock had a clear view of his bloody scalpel, "look at what your choices brought you."
"You think I wanted to end up like this?! Just a machine?"
"There's a mural out in the hallway that says 'humanity is irreplaceable.' So I'm assuming you're aware of your own devolution."
"Well, I am! Ever been torn down and alienated just for being a different race? Or being poor? Or gay? Because I have! So I decided to make myself better than everyone else. I sacrificed everything that meant nothing to me. Morality, my family, my own flesh..."
The Multi Man chuckled. "I get it now. A Freudian excuse, just like everyone else."
"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?"
"Everyone always has the same breaking point: prejudice. Racism, homophobia, xenophobia, all based around the beliefs of superiority of one community over the other. No one ever seems to realize they're all still human in the end."
Braddock's angry demeanor soothed a bit, wondering if maybe there was a sympathetic side to this masked stranger. "Yeah, they are," he added calmly.
"Yeah, they're all human. They still bleed."
Braddock's hope spot went out like a light.
"Excuses, excuses," the Multi Man hissed. "They're all still fucking human. A black man still bleeds if I kill him. A gay man will still scream if I gut him alive. Politicians, left and right, corrupt and beloved, I can still slaughter them like cattle if I wanted." The Man paused again, noticeably furious yet tranquil in his emotions. "Nothing is perfect if it bleeds."
"Fuck you, man! You're talking all high and mighty about yourself, and yet you're just as mortal as everyone else!"
The Multi Man went silent again. "That's right," he replied. "And that's what will provide me a challenge."
Now it was Braddock's turn to ponder silently.
"See, here's the thing," the Multi Man explained. "I know I'm not special, but I'm aware of my purpose. I'm bringing equality to this broken world. Our superiors will be brought down to the lowest level, just like everyone else."
"What the f..."
"Criminals, innocents, the authorities, the rich, the poor. I'm gonna give them what they want: freedom. And they're all gonna die because of it."
"Shut the hell up."
The Multi Man quit twirling his scalpel around to glare at Braddock. "You killed Dawson," he muttered. "You prevented me from witnessing his progression into my new world."
"So what? You killed all of my friends!"
"And by doing so, I gave them a purpose. Do you have any idea how much money I'll make off their robotic parts?"
The Multi Man rose from his seat and marched behind Braddock, kicking the light away so it could shine more on the room. As the rest of the room came into view, Braddock finally learned what happened to his associates and why it sounded like water was dripping to the floor. Their limbless, mangled corpses hung from the ceiling like meat in a slaughterhouse.
"FUCK YOU!" Braddock shrieked. His anguished screams devolved into panic as he noticed the Multi Man tugging on his spinal chord, which had been replaced with a power chord to correspond with his manmade, robotic spine.
"And don't worry about the girls," the Multi Man added. "Even with you out of the picture, they still won't be free from their own psychological restraints."
Finally concluding his sentence, he ripped the cord out of Braddock's head.